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Wednesday, 26 September 2012

Interliterariness as a Concept in Comparative Literature by Marian Galik – An Overview

Literariness and Interliterariness

Interliterariness is a relatively new concept that
began in Central European literary studies though the notion was helped on by Russian
formalists and Czech structuralists. Literariness was a forerunner of this
concept and was first propounded by Roman Jakobson in 1921 when he said “The
object of literary scholarship is not literature but literariness, i.e. which
makes a given work a literary one.

Rene Welleck too presents a similar view of
literariness by stating: “literary scholarship will not make any progress
methodologically, unless it determines to study literature as subject distinct
from other activities and procedures of man. Hence we must face the problem of
‘literariness’, the central issue of aesthetics, the nature of art and
literature.” Aesthetics here means values that are aesthetic that are found in
literary works. What makes a work of art literature is the quality of
literariness it has, this means literariness is a property of a text.

Dionyz Durisin calls literariness a “basic and
essential quality” in literature which embodies all relations within literature
in context of intensity, amount, manner and conditionality within the framework
of a variety of individual literatures. When this intensity, variability,
affinities and mutual relations go beyond the boundary of individual
literatures then literariness is transformed in ‘interliterariness’. This means
that interliterariness too is a basic and essential quality of literature but
it is in an international and inter-ethnic context and ontological
determination. The highest embodiment of this will of course be world
literature.

Therefore, for Durisin the concept of interliterariness
constitutes the main notion for a theory of interliterary process within comparative
literature. Ontologically looked at interliterariness comes after literariness
and so, though interliterariness may comprise of literariness the reverse may
not ring true always.

Literary development

“One of the most important features of
interliterariness is its implied or implicit processual character, a systematic
series of related literary facts within the ethnic or national framework
presupposing the temporal and spatial changes in the course of their literary
development.” Literatures are mostly found to be in a state of flux during
their construction or coming to be due to inside and outside influences as can
be seen from ancient languages like Sumerian and Egyptian to the recent ones.

Interliterariness consists of studying literature
beyond the boundaries of tradition and culture which makes it comparative in
this sense. ‘The Epic of Gilgamesh’ when studied through its various
translations beginning with its first version by G. Smith in 1872 and the
numerous transaltions like those of L. Matous in Czech 1975 can help us
understand the interliterary changes that creep in due to culture in the
Sumerian, Accadian, Assyrian and Hittite versions.

These different versions show the difference in
literary development and also the socio-political and ideological frameworks
that affect a text’s translation. Even the different attitudes towards gods
change the potential of the text. Beowulf for instance, is given a more
Christian colouring by the monks that transcribed it. The interliterary unity
within Gilgamesh can be seen in the similarity of epithets , similes andcommon themes like the abduction of a woman
found in the Ramayana in Sita’s case or in the Iliad with Helen and Briseis.
The seduction of a woman can be seen in the Mahabharata in Draupadi and
Penelope in Odyssey while the hero dreaming of the future or a heavenly
messenger arriving to prophesy is instanced in the case of Hermes in the
Odessey and Impaluri in the Hittite Song on Ullikumi. There is also a similar
use of narrative within narrative seen most abundantly in the Mahabharata but
to a lesser extent in the Iliad and Odyssey.

What concerns Interliterariness

Interliterariness moves beyond culture and ethnic
backgrounds and goes beyond individual qualities and focuses instead on
trans-national, trans-ethnic and geo-literary development of a text. It
involves itself with the impact and also reception of texts through the geo
literary aspect is a recent acquisition in the nineteenth century. We find
interliterariness more prevalent in genetic-contact relations and also
influence and response along with contact between literatures. External
contacts do not impart deeper traces in the receiving structure’s literature
while internal contacts are deeper.

We see traces of this in the new literatures of Asia
and Africa though internal influences must have been active in preabtique time.
This is what has lead to the form of the poetry in the Bible. Due to the
genetic contacts the bible was acknowledged as a book of books in the Western
perspective as the Old Testament was translated into Greek (Septuagint) which
influenced the style of the New Testament and consequently on the Christian
world. However, in the case of developed cultures; genetic interliterariness
does not seem so potent.

As far as the Chinese meets European or to be more
general; European, Greco Roman meets Oriental or West, East and South Asia the
interliterarary development is merged with interartistic symbiosis along with
religion, a plurality of cultures, translation and a sort of polylinguismakin to the mythic tower of Babel in which
Sanskrit was given prime imporatance. In the case of structural-typological parallels
or affinities the interliterariness prevalent is more dominant in the history
and development of the individual literatures.

Influence and reception studies on the other hand,
help illuminate the problems prevalent in “the genesis of works in their
continuity within the dialectical tensions that are found with tradition in
ethnic and national literatures and new methods of innovation that crop in. The
aforementioned structural and typological realm explores analogies of the
interliterary process of different literatures in the same time slot or period
so that new forms of interliterariness may be discovered.

Interliterary poetics

It is one of the objects that form a comparative
methodology but unfortunately is still embryonic in nature as the scope of
study is vast for genres, traditions, customs of Sanskrit, post-Sanskrit and
Arabic works along with other literatures will have to be studied in detail and
a common expression found. According to Earl Miner, the author of ‘Comparative
Poetics: An Intercultural Essay on Theories of Literature; literatures should
be studied from Latin American and Africa as well as other regions as even
Durisin notes how interliterariness as a quality is not confined by national,
ethnic or individual boundaries.

In the case of literatures in contact there are
interliterary connections formed between cultures that are not perceived in
ordinary genetic contact relations and these are met in two opposing ways.
Either the foreign impulses will be accepted and integrated tot eh structure
while the other consists of filtering out the received stimuli to select only
its convenient elements.

Theoretically
speaking the maximum amount of interliterariness is found in the concept of
world literature when applied correctly as then literary history and evolution
is brought to the forefront in the interliterary perspective. Thus, world
literature is ‘summa litterarum universarum’ not maybe in quantity but through
the mutual relationships present and the complex structure of the interliterary
process between these works of literature.

Considering the vast number of languages present
their variety and complexity is in itself is a type of interliterariness. The
concept of world literature as a summa of all literary works produced in
different literatures in the course of their evolution is a broader conception
than that of Weltliteratur which is merely a totality of masterpieces; nor can
literature be solely Euro-centric or based after a particular century. Like
Horst Steinmetz for instance suggests that only works produced after the
nineteenth century should be considered. In order to have a better and deeper
understanding, a broad and comparative stance is required when applying the
theory of interliterariness.